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learning design

There have been numerous blogs, articles, and websites that have created meaningful dialogue on the topic of the skills necessary for the 21st century learner. As part of my #tiegrad courses, I have been asked to contribute to this topic by adding my own set of skills. I designed this model to help myself make the connections between the people, the content, and skills required for learners in the 21st century.

Four skills important for the 21st Century learner that relate to my practice are social and emotional skills, and physical/natural skills, basic (core) academic skills, and higher-level thinking skills. When these skills are supported and practiced by the school, home, and the community, and combined with authentic, meaningful and real-world practice we are preparing our learners to make positive contributions to society.

Skills in order of importance:

1. Social and Emotional Skills

“Research conducted during the past few decades indicates that social and emotional learning programming for elementary- and middle-school students is a very promising approach to reducing problem behaviors, promoting positive adjustment, and enhancing academic performance.” – John Payton, CASEL

I have written about the importance of social and emotional skills in learning before. As we become more connected in a technology sense, we become less connected in a face-to-face sort of way. The skills required to be successful in the real world involve collaborating and problem solving with others. Humans are far more productive and effective when they work together in groups consisting of people with different strengths and not independently. The 2008 CASEL report, The Positive Impact of Social and Emotional Learning for Kindergarten to Eighth-grade Students emphasizes the importance of these life skills and their direct correlation to academic success.

2. Basic Core Academic Skills

It is critical to develop basic core academic skills in learners, as they are lay the foundation for the development of higher order thinking skills later in life. How is it possible to develop a cell phone battery that lasts an entire day without knowing how electricity flows in a circuit? I feel there is a shift in education towards engaging our learners in higher order thinking skills such as critical thinking, synthesizing, evaluating, and producing at the cost of developing basic academic skills. Higher-level thinking skills are important but there needs to be a balance between these skills and the development of foundational skills. In my experience those learners who know their times tables are far more effective at completing multiplication task when compared to those who. They are stronger at working on problem solving, and generally enjoy mathematics more than those who struggles with basic computation. It can be compared to children reading for information. Fluent readers are far more effective at reading for information when compared to those learners who need to decode, break apart, and sound out the majority of the words they read. Learners need opportunities to repeat tasks over and over to achieve mastery. If they are constantly challenged with new material they may suffer from academic burnout and shut down – effectively stagnating their learning process. In Kelly Tenkely’s article, Why Drill and Skill are Necessary in Education and later comments she defends the need for drill and skill in education. By no means does she suggest that her entire curriculum should be founded on these skills, rather she advocates for balance. “These activities give students an opportunity to practice a skill and become familiar with it before creating with it. Drill and skill games and activities give students room to find patterns and build understanding.”

3. Physical/Natural Skills

“We have such a brief opportunity to pass on to our children our love for this Earth, and to tell our stories. These are the moments when the world is made whole.”

Richard Louv

A 2013 Maclean’s article titled, Early education: this is not a field trip reports on a pilot kindergarten program designed to exposed young children to the wonders of nature. With “90 per cent of Canadian children are gaming and six out of 10 households have a gaming console” there exists evidence that children are not spending the same amount of time playing outdoors as they once did. Children who do not engage in active play outdoors don’t learn to socialize, share, and problem solve in the same way children who are in touch with nature do. In my experience, students spend entire weekends playing video games, and rather venture outside to play. A healthy balance between indoor and outdoor play has been lost.

4. Higher-Level Thinking Skills

We need to develop, in our learners, the ability to use the technology that exists at their fingertips today, the technology that will be developed in the future. I genuinely believe we need to be raising a generation of socially conscious learners who, through the use of technology, can make the world a safer and healthier place for generations to come. By facilitating the learning of higher-order thinking skills such as problem solving, critical thinking skills, a sense of inquiry, comparing and identifying ideas, and using old concepts to create new ideas, we can encourage our learners to innovative. The basis of robust learning design focuses more on what learners can do with knowledge and not how much knowledge they can retain.

In summary, there are many skills that are useful for today’s learner. You may or may not agree with the importance of these skills I suggested or how they relate to today’s learner, but in my experience and based on the 9-11 year olds I work with, these are important skills. When learners have a strong support network, when they engage with content that is relevant and meaningful, when they are allowed to follow their own paths of inquiry, and have their physical and emotional needs met, they take a step closer to becoming lifelong learners.
What skills do you think are necessary for your learners now and in the future?

In my latest #tiegrad class I was asked to think about, and reflect on, a misconception/misunderstanding about teaching and learning I have experienced, and how it has led to new insights and knowledge about my craft.

The biggest misconception/misunderstanding I have experienced since I started teaching in 2006 is the realization that learning cannot take place before the social and emotional needs of my students are met first. I used to think my role as an educator was to teach content to students based on a set of guidelines provided by the Ministry of Education, and students would attend class each day ready and able to learn – but I’ve learned the hard way that this is not always the case. Before I realized the importance of attending to the social and emotional needs of my learners, I tended to open the academic floods gates at the morning bell and get straight to work. I didn’t know any better. I assumed that my students were ready, willing, and able to learn. I couldn’t have been more wrong!

“Self-regulation is the ability to manage your own energy states, emotions, behaviours and attention, in ways that are socially acceptable and help achieve positive goals, such as maintaining good relationships, learning and maintaining wellbeing.” – Dr. Stuart Shankar.

The ability of my learners to self-regulate is an important part of meeting the social and emotional needs of my learners. Making time to explicitly teach skills around self-regulation (making our learners aware of conditions they need to be successful, teaching them how to deal with unexpected situations, and how to relate to others) has become increasingly important in today’s classrooms. The best learning design in the world cannot reach the dysregulated learner. One can design experiences, which engage students fully in the learning process, ask questions that lead to meaningful exploration of the topic, and allow time for students to follow their own line of inquiry, but unless we are able to decode our learners and understand their state of mind as they enter our classrooms we are fighting a losing battle.

Two Techniques To Attend To The Social and Emotional Needs Of Students:

By creating conditions where students feel safe to express their emotions and build community and support with their classmates, Restorative Classroom Practices can have positive effects on learner’s emotional needs. The simple act of gathering in a circle at the start of the school day, checking in with how we are feeling, creating a sense of equality, and giving a voice to every student, Restorative Classroom Practices have had positive and meaningful impact on the student’s classroom experience. Perhaps the biggest shift I have made over the years is that I have been able to shift decision making process from teacher to the students with remarkable success.

Using the latest research in neuroscience, MindUp curriculum provides educators with the tools to engage their learners in how the brain functions, what the optimum conditions for learning are, when the brain develops roadblocks for learning, and techniques to overcome these roadblocks. Many of my learners struggle to attend to the ‘present’ while in the classroom. They’re either reflecting on the past, or looking forward to the future, and this lack of attending to the present is having negative effects on their school experience. Creating a ‘mindful’ classroom is not just a buzzword of 21st Century learning. It is precisely because of the speed and the attention grabbing technological world we live in that students need to create time and space to disconnect, focus within, and calm their minds. A mindful classroom creates a space for the dysregulated learner to find comfort and a sense of belonging.

“The average time spent with screen media among 8- to 18-year-olds is more than twice the average amount of time spent in school each year.” (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2010; National Center for Education Statistics, 2007–2008)

Whenever I think about use of technology in the classroom and its impact on learning and attention, I cannot help but make connections to the book, “It’s a Book” by Lane Smith. The book centers on two characters. One is a digital native and the other is an analogue learner. The two of them are having different experiences with a paper book. When I read it I think of the analogue learner as a grandfather and digital native as a grandson.

The question we need ask ourselves as educators is “How do we continue to provide engaging and meaningful learning experiences for students with or without attention difficulties? Research conducted with the help of classroom teachers by Common Sense Media, a non-profit organization that studies the effects that media and technology have on young users, shows that technology advances have affected learner’s ability to attend to a variety of tasks, but at the same time the research found an increase in learner’s ability to find new information and multitask effectively. A recent Psychology Today article written by Jim Taylor, Ph.D. supports some of the findings in the Common Sense Media research by claiming that exposure to technology isn’t all bad.

“Research shows that, for example, video games and other screen media improve visual-spatial capabilities, increase attentional ability, reaction times, and the capacity to identify details among clutter. Also, rather than making children stupid, it may just be making them different.”

I think it is safe to say that in order to develop successful learners who are able to contribute meaningfully to society a balance needs to be established with the use of technology.

Attention In My Grade 5/6 Classroom

I have worked in the same grade 5-6 classroom for the last five years, and the majority of my students spend many hours interacting with technology by playing video games and watching YouTube videos. It is difficult to establish whether there is a direct link between increased in screen time and a drop in learner’s ability to attend tasks, but what is clear is the difficulty I have in capturing and maintain attention in class. It would be pompous of me to think I do not own a slice of the problem, and need to continue to work on improving my learning design to better suit the needs of my learners, but I work in a system that is slow to change and adapt to a different style of learner.

So How Do We Adapt To Attention Changes Within Our Learners?

We can use stories to capture and hold learner’s attention. Stories are logical, they have a sequence we are all familiar with, they promote questioning and inferring, and can create and convey strong emotions.

Use visuals cues such as infographics to help students absorb information. “Verbal and visual cues are processed differently by the brain….Unless someone has a vision or related impairment, they learn from visuals.” Dirksen

Allow students to work in groups. Group work creates a space for positive social interactions, support, and leadership.

Ask questions that cannot be answered by a simple Google search. Ask questions that require learners to interpret

Put your students a state of cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance occurs when learners are present with an event that is contradictory to their own experiences.

In my latest #tiegrad class I was asked to reflect on a highly memorable learning experience and link it to my understanding of learning and memory.

Sadly, I can probably count on one hand the number of highly memorable learning experiences I have encountered. With this in mind, I don’t know why I am so surprised to see some of my students unengaged and unmotivated. As it turns out, learning experiences are more often than not largely forgetful because it is a complex and individual experience:

“Learning is not simply a process of absorbing information from the environment. Rather, it is a process of making—actively and intentionally constructing—knowledge and understandings.” – Ormrod (2010)

One of my most memorable learning experiences occurred recently. For six weeks in November of last year I attended prenatal classes with my wife and unborn child. These six sessions, although highly engaging, did not involve a lot of ‘hands on’ work, nor was there time allotted to practice the skills necessary for a healthy, active, and participatory labour experience. This contradicts some of the learning strategies we use in schools and classrooms around the country while creating robust learning experiences for students.

Why was this experience so memorable?

For two main reasons:

I was highly motivated about the content because I could see how the skills learned in the classes would help make my life easier during a transitional time in my life. I had enough life experience to know that there was a real benefit for me to retain as much information as possible in an effort to retain a healthy work/life balance. Retaining information is sometimes difficult for me. Most of the time, especially during professional development opportunities my district offers, I do not move information from my working memory to long-term memory very effectively. Why? I think I am an automated learner, and are not actively engaged in my own learning – especially when my life is busy and my mind seems full. In our text, Design For How People Learn, Dirksen talks the steps required to move information from working memory to long-term memory. She uses the example of ‘shelves’ on which information can be stored, much like a well organized filing system in the brain. The more shelves one can place important information the better chance one stands of retrieving it when needed. “Anything that you do remember becomes part of a series of associations – you don’t learn anything in isolation.” – Dirksen.

When it came to prenatal classes the information was easy to encoded because I had enough life experience to see a direct and immediate need the information. It was easily retrieved during the lengthy labour process because I filed it away on many ‘shelves’ including being a support to wife, being a good husband, be an advocate for my wife during labour, and being able to care for a newborn.

Another reason why this was a memorable learning experience was because the content evoked strong emotions within me all the learners present. The use of role-playing was highly effective during class, and helped a great deal prepare my wife and I for a very different birth experience than we had planned. One of the last activities we completed in our prenatal class was to role play what it would look like if labour did not go to plan and an emergency cesarean section was required. Our instructor, Michelle, did an excellent job of explaining how a cesarean section was vastly different from a natural birth. She directed the fathers in the group to role-play what would happen in this scenario. After the session I knew at what point a caesarian would happen, how my wife’s care would be transferred from midwife to obstetrician, that we would separated for a short period of time before and after birth, that the operating room would be full of doctors and nurses, that the room would be painfully bright, and that I would be with baby directly after surgery and not, ideally, my wife.

“Even though we know it’s not real, role-playing can be an effective way to create the feel of the emotional context, especially if you have effective playing the part.” – Julie Dirksen

In summary, in each of the six prenatal lessons the information that caught my attention the most, information I moved from sensory register into short-term memory, was information that evoked strong emotions, and information I needed in order to be the best support I could be for my wife. As working memory tends to hold information for only a few seconds I needed to encode this information into long-term memory, quickly. I used many associations to encode the information as mention above. I placed the information on several ‘shelves’ with labels such as ‘best practices for being a supportive husband’, ‘skills required to be a great first time father’, ‘baby’s needs’, ‘worst case scenarios’, etc. Having numerous associations helped me easily retrieve information when I needed it, even under stressful and unexpected conditions. “Learners are especially likely to retrieve information when they have many possible pathways to it – in other words, when they have associated the information with numerous other ideas in their existing knowledge.” – Ormrod (2010)

In my latest #tiegrad class I was asked to consider why learning design is important and how it can be useful in my own practice. Here are some of my thoughts:

When I use robust learning design to explicitly plan, structure, and sequence learning experiences for and with my students I find the quality of the instructional time to be high, and the user experience more satisfying. One example that comes to mind immediately are the resources, curriculum, and lesson plans I use from Free The Children. When I first partnered with Free The Children, in 2010, I used their resources in my social studies classes to raise awareness of local and global issues, but instead of adapting the resources to suit the needs of my learners I rolled out the lesson plans from the box, verbatim, and they failed.

Why did they fail? They were after all well written, scaffolded appropriately, and supported with multimedia options, but that wasn’t enough.

After persistently and feverishly struggling through several lessons I took the time to reevaluate the experience my students were having and made some changes. In essence, I started the learning design process. The lessons were bombing because they were not my lessons; they were someone else’s. The first change I made was to restructure the content and make sure I fully understood what I wanted my students to learn. Next I evaluated the learning needs of my students and quickly found out they had a very limited knowledge of the geographical world around them, so I helped to quickly fill some knowledge gaps. Finally, and most importantly, I moved away from a lesson plan format where I shared information, and we worked on the gradual release of responsibly on a specific task, to a much more hands on method. My students have learned that the best way of understanding social justice issues and working towards positive change in the world is by creating awareness, educating others, and taking direct action. My students now hosts assemblies to educate the school on the importance of education, they hold movie nights to talk about the importance of clean water, and they indulge in a day of silence in support of child rights. Robust learning design has proved helpful in increasing student engagement and motivation.

Advantages of Learning Design

Can lead to student centered learning rather than teacher centered learning

Leads to differentiated learning – Blooms Taxonomy

Can connect learning to real-life situations

Keeps the learning experiences ‘honest’ – How does this lesson relate to the goal?

Creating learning experiences based on latest neuroscience and tailored towards how children best learn today

My Learning Design

One area of learning design that is most important to my own practice is differentiating the learning experience for my students. Sometimes I use the excuse that I have such a challenging class with a variety of complex needs that I cannot possible create meaningful learning experiences for everyone, but with a more robust learning design plan I can reach more of my learners. Through understanding the cultural, knowledge, and skills gaps in my learners I can tailor learning to suit the individual needs of all my learners in a more effective manner than trying to squeeze all learners down a path they may not have the skills and experience to navigate.

In my #tiegrad class, I was recently asked to consider whether or not our current schools/teachers/curriculum are preparing students for the 21st century?

I think it’s fair to say that schools, teachers, and curriculum want to meet the needs of their learners regardless of the century they occupy. They want to produce independent thinkers who contribute to society in positive ways, and learners who are encouraged to reach their full potential.

Are they doing enough?

Probably not, but it isn’t from lack of trying. Everyday I am surrounded by deeply passionate educators, who deliver curriculum in meaningful and innovative ways, work hard towards building robust relationships with students, in districts who desperately want to see successful children arriving at school doors every morning.

In order for curriculum to meet the needs of its learners it cannot be revised every 4+ years. It’s in the area of curriculum where I find educators excel, and the work they do is sometimes under appreciated. They have become extremely skilled at using curriculum as a guide before tweaking, contorting, and manipulating its content to make it relevant for their learners. I don’t know a single teacher who isn’t working their socks off at making curriculum relevant. It might not follow current ‘trends’ in education but who’s to say that it’s not meaningful to the group it’s being shared with.

By now it is unquestionable that our current education system was designed for a different era, and needs an overhaul. Learners grouped by age instead of interest/ability, sat in desks for the majority of the day, learning a compartmentalized curriculum, and primarily focused on individual success and recognition. The world is moving in a different direction and education is in danger of being left behind. If our current education system operated in the business world, then it would have folded long ago. In its defense, there isn’t the kind of money allotted to make the kind of sweeping changes that occur often in the corporate world. Schools are asked to do more with less and strain is clear to see. When high schools are so overpopulated that PE teachers are required to conduct their lessons in the hallways then there is an obvious problem. Perhaps there are too many individual groups (Ministry of Education, school boards, school districts, DPACS, principals, parents, union, and teachers) within the system trying to advocate for their own methods of reform, that it is difficult to hear the message through the noise. The British Columbia Ministry of Education is in the process of revising its curriculum through its much-touted BC Education Plan. Will it be enough? Only time will tell whether it will support those asked to convey its new vision of a changing world and changing learner. I agree with the BC Education Plan’s message that student’s need to be at the center of their learning. In fact, the more I read about student centered learning from the likes of Angela Maiers’s The Passion Driven Classroom, Will Richardson’s Why School, and Daniel Pink’s Drive, the more I realize the importance of learner choice in education. Learners need time in their weekly schedule to find their passions and follow their own learning path. I particularly enjoyed watching Shelley Wright’s TED Talk about the power of student learning. In it she talks about a pedagogical awaking under the guidance of Alex Couros.

“For the first time I began to realize that maybe my students could construct their learning. That learning is constructed in community, and that maybe they would be the centre of it, maybe they would have something to say about it.…” Shelley Wright.

As I continue to shape and reshape my own pedagogy through the experiences I have at school, my own lifelong learning, and the professional networks I have developed, I have come to realize certain facts about learners in the 21st Century. I know that curriculum needs to be relevant and meaningful to its users. I know that learners need time to follow paths of inquiry, and be encouraged to take risks. I know that the social and emotional needs of my students need to be met before any learning can take place, and there is a unhealthy fear of failure in our schools. Most importantly, a robust, flexible, and rigorous public education system is more important than ever.

My name is Christopher Lister. Originally from England, I lived and worked in Canada for the last 15 years. I am a little distracted in many areas of life right now as my partner and I are expecting our first child in the coming weeks. Together, we hope to figure out how to juggle the demands of school, work, and family life as the year progresses and our family grows.

I have been directly involved in education for close to 10 years now, and I am looking forward to deepening my understanding of student engagement, motivation, and generally working on having more fun with the students I work with. I work in the Chilliwack School District (SD#33) and for the last five years I have worked at Central Elementary Community School in downtown Chilliwack as a grade 5-6 teacher. I enjoy the incredible freedom I have been given to plan activities, lessons, and learning opportunities that motivate and engage my students, but wonder if this freedom has meant that curriculum/learning design has taken a backseat.

Instead of answering the question, “What would like to teach the world?” I feel more comfortable commenting on what I would like to share with the world. In 2010 I was working at Central Elementary School, and my principal at the time, Scott Wallace, called me into his office one day to gauge my interest in an event called We Day. He had arrange for me and my teaching partner to take our grade 6’s to the event in Vancouver. At the time I did not recall the conversation as meaningfully as I do now, as this event, the spirit of We Day, and the impact it has had on the students who have bought into the movement is difficult to describe in words. We Day is a movement to encourage youth to participate in social justice issue both locally and globally. The message of We Day is loud and clear: There are many people in this world who, for reasons such as poverty, hunger, lack of education, lack of sufficient health care, and unclean water, are unable to reach their full potential in life. When large numbers of youth get together, educated themselves, be empowered by mentors, and take action, they can create positive social change. We Day changed the way I teach, it re energizes me when I get bogged down in curriculum, assessments, and meaningfully standardized testing, and it caused me to reevaluate how much I was contributing to the world around me.

How will I share this with the world? Well, I plan to continue to present opportunities for my students to participate in events that relate to positive social change through a partnership with Free The Children. Personally, I plan to evaluate how much I contribute to the word around me, and look for opportunities to enhance and enrich my local community. In fact, I am currently searching for the right opportunity to increase my volunteer time.